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Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Arieh Warshel, Israeli-American awarded Nobel Prize in chemistry

Arieh Warshel

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Wednesday
that Israeli scientist Arieh Warshel, together with scientists Martin Karplus
and Michael Levitt, have won this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry for laying
the foundation for computer models used to understand and predict chemical
processes.

The Swedish academy noted that their research in the 1970s
has helped scientists develop programs that unveil chemical processes such as
the purification of exhaust fumes or the photosynthesis in green leaves.

"The work of Karplus, Levitt and Warshel is
ground-breaking in that they managed to make Newton's classical physics work
side-by-side with the fundamentally different quantum physics," the
academy said. "Previously, chemists had to choose to use either/or."

Warshel is a US and Israeli citizen affiliated with the
University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Levitt is a British citizen
and a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine who has also held
positions at the Weizmann Institute for many years. Karplus, a US and Austrian
citizen is affiliated with the University of Strasbourg, France, and Harvard
University.

Warshel told a news conference in Stockholm by telephone
that he was "extremely happy" to be awakened in the middle of the
night in Los Angeles to find out he had won the prize and looks forward to
collecting the award in the Swedish capital in December.

"In short what we developed is a way which requires
computers to look, to take the structure of the protein and then to eventually
understand how exactly it does what it does," Warshel said.

In an interview with Israel Army Radio he described the
moment he was informed of his win. "I got a phone call at 2:30 am. They
didn't have to say anything, once the phone rang, I knew."

Asked about the role Israel plays in his identity he said,
"I am partly Israeli. I visit Israel, I feel Israeli. My kids speak
Hebrew."

His brother Yigal noted that he left Israel at the age of
34, after serving as a combat signal officer. "He was at the Weizman
Institute but said he had better chances of getting ahead overseas, that the
salary is better.

He hasn't lived in Israel for 40 years. I once asked him
whether he would ever come back – he said he wouldn't. I guess he's happy
there."